In late 2024, five years on from the release of his fourth album, Bon Iver announced the release of a three-track EP: SABLE.
For a moment, it appeared as if Justin Vernon was revisiting his fabled cabin in the woods, making a full-circle return to the bare-bones, crestfallen indie-folk of For Emma, Forever Ago. Something was off, though: S P E Y S I D E’s self-serious, grayscale music video saw Vernon cosplaying as a po-faced cowboy, swallowed up by gloomy skies and crashing waves. If it scanned as self-parody, that’s because it kinda was.
A few months later, and the jig was up: Bon Iver wasn’t returning to his roots, but hacking them off entirely. SABLE was in fact only a prologue to a full-length project that represents a new chapter for Vernon, drawing a line in the sand and placing his sadness - an emotion that, for better or worse, has defined the majority of Bon Iver’s output - firmly behind it. SABLE’s inky black gave way to the rosy, salmon pink of fABLE, nine uplifting songs inspired by new love, self-acceptance and a hard-won peace of mind.
Following the album’s release, we’re ranking Bon Iver’s five studio albums, from the plaintive indie-folk of 2007’s For Emma, Forever Ago to the blissed-out and soulful pop of SABLE, fABLE.
5. i,i
On 2019’s i,i, Justin Vernon opened up his circle wider than ever before, inviting more than 50 collaborators to contribute to a project that seemed to declare: Bon Iver is not just a guy, it’s a community, and the album isn’t about him - it’s about all of us. (He’s also perhaps the only man in music with tastes broad enough to unite Bruce Hornsby and major-league hip-hop producer Wheezy on the same record.)
As you’d expect from a record featuring such a varied cast, it’s a somewhat patchy affair, bound together by a handful of electrifying songs - Hey, Ma, Naeem and Faith - that alloy the rueful majesty of Bon Iver, Bon Iver with 22, A Million’s avant-pop sonics. Influenced by Vernon’s psychoactive excursions, some of the album’s finest moments are its most psychedelic; the hallucinatory iMi - a song with a beat built from radio snippets and cardboard percussion - feels almost like a head-spinning mushroom trip.
4. For Emma, Forever Ago
The album that launched Vernon’s career, For Emma, Forever Ago has a backstory that’s become indie-folk legend. Following the troubling breakdown of a band and a relationship, Vernon holed up for the winter in a remote cabin with nothing but a couple of guitars and an SM57 for company. The nine songs that emerged from this self-imposed exile - originally only intended to be demo recordings - placed Vernon on the path to Grammy awards, Taylor Swift collaborations, and worldwide acclaim.
For a certain group of angst-ridden, teenage millennials - this writer included - For Emma, Forever Ago was just about the most powerful and emotive piece of music that had ever graced their Limewire library. Brittle, misty-eyed songs like Flume and Skinny Love ached with regret and longing, and Vernon’s elastic falsetto pierced the heart deeper than a high-school breakup. But Bon Iver’s grown up, and so have we. For Emma remains a tender, well-crafted album that captured a distinct cultural moment, but almost two decades on, it doesn’t quite hit like it used to.
3. SABLE, fABLE
SABLE, fABLE is uncharted territory for Bon Iver. It’s the most jubilant and carefree that Vernon’s ever sounded, and while familiar sonic hallmarks remain, they’re serving a different purpose. The pitch-shifted, gear-frazzled samples of 22, A Million are here, but they’re signifying romance, not existential angst, and Greg Leisz’s pedal steel makes a reappearance, but this time around, he’s laying down a triumphant solo, not a tasteful accompaniment.
The record’s warm and celebratory second half decisively renounces the well-trodden melancholy of its introduction, trading wistful finger-picked guitars for an intoxicating cocktail of gospel, soft-rock and R&B - and with it, ushering in a new era for Bon Iver. The conclusion of a career-long catharsis, SABLE, fABLE is a happy ending: it may not be what we expected, but it sounds like it’s just what Vernon needed.
2. Bon Iver, Bon Iver
On Vernon’s debut record, Bon Iver was a man alone in the woods. By the time that album’s follow-up came around, Bon Iver meant something entirely different. Buoyed by For Emma’s success, Vernon built a studio - April Base, where he records to this day - and invited new faces into the fold, transforming Bon Iver from a solo project into a nine-piece band and recording an album that amplified his intimate sound to monumental, Grammy-winning proportions.
Grander in scope both lyrically and sonically, Bon Iver, Bon Iver fleshed out Vernon’s stately arrangements with saxophones, strings, synths and trumpets, sculpting songs that were vast and sumptuous where For Emma was gentle and spare. The sounds were richer, brighter and more vivid, and Vernon’s falsetto was charged with a newfound confidence. “At once I knew, I was not magnificent,” Vernon croons on Holocene. We’d beg to differ.
1. 22, A Million
Many artists have accomplished dramatic reinventions of their sound, but few have switched things up quite like Bon Iver did on 22, A Million. After the warmth and poignance of their self-titled record - a luxurious album with a rich, naturalistic sound - the last thing anybody expected was a headfirst dive into fractured, experimental electronics. But from the moment a looped, tape-warped sample of Vernon’s voice opened 22 (OVER S∞∞N), it was clear that something very different was in store.
22, A Million is stark, lucid and proudly synthetic, every one of its sounds a little frayed around the edges. Its lyrics obscure anger and anguish in made-up words and cryptic metaphors, its track titles are numerological puzzles, and its album art looks like something you’d see scrawled on the wall of a satanic cult. Even Vernon’s voice has been profoundly transformed; sampled, mangled and prismatically processed into a fierce, chordal roar. (Not many artists have the balls to devote an entire song to their vocals alone.) Yet in all their artificiality and obfuscation, the raw feeling behind these songs remains more palpable than ever.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
“I’m looking forward to breaking it in on stage”: Mustard will be headlining at Coachella tonight with a very exclusive Native Instruments Maschine MK3, and there’s custom yellow Kontrol S49 MIDI keyboard, too
“The thing from the agency said, ‘We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da...' and at the bottom it said 'and it must be 3 & 1/4 seconds long’“: Brian Eno’s Windows 95 start-up sound added to the US Library of Congress
![James Hetfield [left] and Kirk Hammett harmonise solos as they perform live with Metallica in 1988. Hammett plays a Jackson Rhodes, Hetfield has his trusty white Explorer.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/mpZgd7e7YSCLwb7LuqPpbi-840-80.jpg.webp)
